Many medical conditions require long-term or permanent medication. A patient must usually take one or more medications in prescribed dosages and at certain time intervals. Various devices are known for assisting the patient in complying with his/her medical regimen. The most sophisticated devices are so-called medication dispensers, which dispense pre-packaged and labelled medication packages to provide the patient with the proper dosage of medications at a prescribed time. The medications are pre-packaged into packages according to the medical regimen of the patient, and are available from licensed pharmacies or directly from medication packaging units of a caregiver, e.g. communal health care. The labels of the medication packages may contain information about the patient, the content of the package, the time of the dosage and/or other information related to the medication or to the medication package.
Typically, the medication packages are arranged as a strip, which is inserted into a container of the medication dispenser either by the patient or a caregiver of the patient. The medication dispenser dispenses the packages by separating the packages from the strip one package at a time according to the information provided by the labels of the packages, or information stored in the medication dispenser. The medication dispenser allows the dispensation of medications to be monitored and controlled so that the patient, the caregiver or any other person having access to the system can be assured that the patient is taking the medications as prescribed.
Mostly such automated medication administration systems are used by users under long-term medication. The users however have different needs, which need to be taken into account in the automated systems. For instance, medications are different, some need to be taken according to a strict schedule and others do not necessarily need so tight routines to be followed. Moreover, users are different, they have different capabilities to take medication and administrate their care, and their routines in everyday life are different. Some users are still in the work life, some are retired and can have various degrees of activity. Some users may travel a lot while others are in home care.
A problem associated with known medication dispensers is that they do not support different nature of various medical regimens necessary for efficient and safe medical treatment. Indeed, typically medication needs to be taken at the right time and some medications should not be taken close to each other, e.g. if the medication is critically delayed, it must not be taken but the user must wait for the next medication.
Furthermore, some medications are dependent of each other, e.g. medication protecting stomach must be taken before the actual medication and there is a certain time period that needs to pass between the two intakes. These regimens make it hard to handle the medications easily, yet safely, in normal life, while going to work, travelling or going to different events.
Manual dispensers or trays for medication administration are known in the art and they can be easily carried along but then the medication has to be administrated manually. This means manual refilling work pill by pill for the caregiver or for the patient himself, which naturally increases the risk for a human mistake and reduces time available for other important health care tasks. On the other hand, taking medications may cause problems for people with memory problems, for example. The automated dispensers as mentioned above typically have only one fixed program to support medication, and cannot thus dispense medication according to the medical regimen if the user is not near the dispenser at all times. Automated dispensers, which take absence of the patient into account, do exist, but typically using them is neither easy nor safe.